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Posts tagged 'Saturday Night Live' (23)
I will say that off the top of my head, the two favorite sketches that I was a part of had to have been the Harry Caray space show with Jeff Goldblum and, of course the cowbell sketch with Christopher Walken.
My favorite cast member to work with was Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
It was awesome to learn the television business from that side. I got to work with great people and watch great musical acts and drink til 7am for no reason.
Not being good at getting sketches didn't mean I was all of sudden a horrible stand up. My confidence was never broken. I immediately started writing at 30 rock right after SNL. Smooth transition.
The smartest SNL cast member was Adam Sandler, by far.
People are going to know this - when I got hired, Adam was hired as a writer, he wasn't even hired as a cast member. And he was smart enough to write stuff for other people AND write stuff for himself at the same time. Made himself indispensable. Made himself into a star. Smartest guy I know.
They're good. I don't know them as well as I knew the previous one. But i really feel like the previous cast, that was the best group since the original group. They were my favorite group. Some really talented people that were all comedians of some kind or another. You think about Dana Carvey, Will, Hartman, all these wonderful funny guys. But the last group with Kristen Wiig and those characters, they were a bunch of actors and their stuff was just different. It's all about the writing, the writing is such a challenge and you are trying to write backwards to fit 90 minutes between dress rehearsal and the airing. And sometimes the writers don't get the whole thing figured out, it's not like ...
Well, here's what I did, Victoria. Any sketch I would write, I would call my character "Stan Hooper" and he didn't really do anything, you know? And I would be very careful to name him Stan Hooper, and then have someone in the sketch say "Hey Stan Hooper" and one time I read a list of recurring characters and Stan Hooper was way up there. And of all the characters he had no real qualities of any kind. Just a bland empty vessel of a man.
He returned to host the show when I was a cast member. And I did a character that pinched girls's asses, and said "YOU LOVE IT." And he's a great fan of it and thought it was going to be a huge character. And then it didn't get past dress rehearsal. And he said, "That's showbiz."
I said fuck on Saturday Night Live and I thought I'd be fired for it. I wasn't really embarrassed about it but I'm surprised I didn't say it a million times since it's live TV.
It certainly didn’t debunk the myth. He was super charming and nice but he still came across pretty cool and badass and on the wind. We finished and walked off and he shook my hand there on the stage and was like, “Pleasure doing business with you.” And then he was gone, like Keyser Söze. [Laughs.] He left and I was like, “There goes the motherfucking man.”
It was the first sketch I ever did. I got confused with stage direction, and literally did not know what color I was on the cue cards, so I just froze! Hey people, it's live TV, and the experience has made me a better performer. AND took away the fear of being in sketches!
Literally, just walked into Lorne's office and he said, "Hey, we're just going to make you into a cast member." And I said, "...who?!"
The hours. We work on each show FOREVER. Another thing I didn't expect - how good EVERYBODY is at their job. Like, EVERYBODY.
The first time I heard "Pornstars!" It was the Jonah Hill episode. "One time I thought I banged Seal Team Six... but it was actually just sixteen seals. I was like, 'Thanks, America!'" I remember I made them keep that joke in there!
It's my favorite moment of the week. It's the one time I can stand in the studio and look around and think how grateful I am to work at SNL.
This was one of my favorite performances of all time. And it was the first time Rihanna played this song anywhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-dW7z0QBNg
The craziest moment was walking out to do Weekend Update and my first joke was about the Patriots and Deflategate and the one person I passed walking to the desk was Robert Kraft. He was just hanging out and watching the show in our studio. I was like, "Hey.... Ear muffs?"
One of my favorites of all time was my childhood hero Jim Carrey. One of my least favorites from a legal standpoint was Robert Blake.
A great talent. We used to call him 'the glue' because he kept all the sketches together. I think about him often. So many fav sketches with him. Tarzan, Tonto and Frankenstein...Mace...The olympian weight lifter...I'm sure I'm forgetting tons..
Behind the scene stories from SNL -- I particularly remember the Saturday that Steve Martin was hosting with Sting as musical guest. The fire alarms went off that afternoon and we all had to rush down the stairs and out into the street. We weren't allowed back into the building until right before the live show. We went on with no rehearsal. Quite exciting. (just smoke in the building).
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